


Edges and Bullets

by outtapaint



Category: The 100 Series - Kass Morgan, and Black Mirror, inspired by The 100 - Fandom
Genre: Mutants, Other, Revolt, copyrightedtome, endofthehumanrace, forcedincest, shortstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 13:52:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15002246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outtapaint/pseuds/outtapaint
Summary: The human race is two humans away from extinction and the Underlanders responsible have come to terms with the fact that they made a grave mistake.  Fortunately, there is a way to turn things around, but siblings Waura and Cliff O'Brogen aren't willing to cooperate.





	Edges and Bullets

**Author's Note:**

> This is for a friend, sorry it took five months to churn out ':-)

       Libraries are quiet, vespers are quiet, graves are quiet, but Corona . . . You know where this is going.

       Night after night, day after day – screaming, laughing, crying, crashing; always something new yet never different.  I blame my shaded life for not preparing me for the blood feral minds can shed.  As a general rule, killing is wrong and I assure you I have never broken it.  Ever.  A buck or fifty but survival doesn’t count.  What I’m really referring to is people, so I’ll rephrase – ahem – I, Waura O’Brogen, have never taken or otherwise harmed the life of an intelligent being in my twenty-nine years of existence.

       That’s the top reason Jackie’s kicking my ass.

       So far he’s pounded my face, blackened both my eyes, thrown an arm joint out of place, fucked up my shoulder – the list is miles long.  It’s safe to say that acquiescing to being Jackie’s personal sparring dummy has done irreparable damage to my head-turning looks.  Again, I have to wonder about this guy’s childhood.  Is this what being raised underground does to a person?  Maybe.  But I have a feeling that’s only the surface of it.

       “Get up,” Jackie hisses.

       Get lost.  Lying on my side I struggle to swallow the blood in my throat, a nasty coughing fit shaking my body.  A nanosecond later a _Shhhn_ stabs the air.  Shit.  Stifling my desire to roll over and die, I roll to my feet, raise my fists, and settle into a “come at me” stance despite having already lost.

       “Don’t tell me what to do!” I snap, spits of red flying from my mouth.

       Jackie _growls,_  dry-bone fur raising and enlarging him.  I’m deliberately holding back on him to piss him off and it’s working – clearly.  Weaponless, I wet my lips as we breathlessly circle each other like sand crabs scuttling lifeless shores at midnight.  Jackie is . . . tall.  Let’s start there: eight and a half feet, clawed hands and feet, pale fur coat, oh, and partially nude.  Underlanders aren’t exactly modest.  His marble-like eyes shine at me as he bares his fangs in a grating snarl that shakes the part of my brain that recalls his whispered kill count.  My older brother Cliff sits on a bench against the far wall, embroidering on a scrap of cloth and ready to jump in if Jackie decides to murder me.  What a guy.  What a guy.

       I narrowly escape a one-way trip to the morgue when Jackie bellows, “Fight!” and slashes at me with his open-middle sword, not once, but TWICE.

       “Fuck you!”

       _CRACK!_

       I don’t remember what he hit me with but it was very hard, and the next thing I know I’m kissing the floor.  Fuzzy sparkles spotting around my eyes, I watch groggily as Jackie’s feet fall off the edge of my vision as I lie in a limp heap of aching bones, burning blood, and trembling skin.  His own people won’t associate with him anymore because of all the partners he’s scraped through, so he probably considers my wounding “merciful”.  At least we’re done.  Now I can just lie here . . . Dying.

      But of course, he has to ruin that, too.

       “Get up,” Jackie scowls, propping his ankle up on his knee as he runs a cloth down his blade. “You look pathetic.”

       “Fight me.”

       Jackie’s ugly face twists into a bright glare, a snigger sounding from the side that our heads simultaneously swivel around to just in time to see Cliff pull his lips between his teeth and fix his attention on his woodland creature.  Honestly, I don’t even care, I’m amazed he remembers what those things look like.  Heh . . . I should probably get to the infirmary before Cece’s shift ends.  She’s . . . okay – for an Underlander.  Loads your head with dope, band-aids the boo-boos, and sticks out like a broken nose.  They all do in some way, but her rainbow features have always been the most memorable for me.  It’s a shame she’s a Razist and loyal to the Lere because we could have actually made something work.  The sheer nonchalance in her voice when she talks about the extirpation – you’d think she was telling you about what she had for breakfast that morning!  That it doesn’t matter.  That nothing’s wrong with it.

       Something pumps these monsters’ blood – deep, deep, _deep_ down in the darkest corner of their ribcage, but that’s where they know – ohhh they know – that they fucked over the entire earth by stamping the human race into the dirt.

       God’ll get around to them.  Someday.

       Or maybe I’ll get impatient.

       . . .

       Whichever comes first.

       “GET UP!”

       _I need those drugs_. I groan, peeling my sweat-soaked body off the floor to limp over the Cliff and drop on the bench with a grimace.  Fuck.  Cliff’s gaze rolls over briefly to meld brown with brown then he looks down, pulling back the needle to tighten the stitch.

       I grunt.

       “Well, fuck you too.”

       Those dumb smile marks appear but he doesn’t look up again.  I sigh and knead my forehead. “Seriously, fuck you.  If this is all you’re going to do when we’re together than you mine as well stay in your quarters gathering dust.  What is that anyway?”  I gesture vaguely at the odd, cerise covey of stitches and frown. “Looks like a radioactive squirrel.”

       “It’s a fox.”

       I grumble. “It’s shit.”

       I wouldn’t know, I’ve never seen a fox.  Not even bothering to flip me off, Cliff starts another row.  Asshole.  Moments pass as I irritably watch the stitches take form, then I glance at his face and it’s at this point I have to close my eyes, perturbed by who I see.  Captivity hasn’t agreed with either of us but it’s taken a heftier toll on my brother.  When they allowed us to see each other for the first time after our capture I almost – ALMOST beat a sentry to death.  It was easy to tell they had been starving him from the disturbing way his skin clung to his bones; hair down to his shoulders; auburn beard; pale as a ghost.  All because some snitch gave us away to the Lere.  My eyelids slide open and I drag them to Cliff’s side where I see the imprint of a single firearm.  It's useless against mutants but flesh isn't bulletproof.

       I heave a sigh and reach for the pile of rags to wipe my face but Cliff smacks my hand away before my fingertips can make purchase. “Okay damn!” I scowl, jerking up and marching toward the double doors of the training room.  Cece better have a blanket I can borrow.

       “Where do you think you’re going?” Jackie barks, his feet thudding to the floor.

       “Get fucked!” I snap, pulling the left door open and wincing when a long screech sounds from the water-rusted hinges.  I mean it, he disappears for hours on end when he has someone else to dominate.  I slip out and begin down the firelit tunnel when the doors behind me slam open and a clawed hand clamps onto my injured shoulder with the strength to crush carbon.  One yank and my feet leave the floor and I fly backward, crashing through the doors.  I feel, hear, and say a lot of things when my ass hits the floor: agony, howling, swears, and _writhe_.  There’s nothing I can do but shut my eyes and pray he’ll be quick.

       “BACK OFF!”

       My eyes snap open in shock.  Cliff?  He had thundered over and was standing in front of me like a wall, a tissue paper wall with white knuckles, and it’s then I realize that our sessions have been rubbing him the wrong way all along.  He looks like a stranger from behind, my watery eyes picking out faint atoms of his old self fluttering around him like specks of golddust desperate to brighten him.  For a moment of breaths, he chokes on his hatred as Jackie simpers down at us.  Then, he opens his throat. 

       Dark.

       “You don’t control her!” he snarls. “You don’t control either of us!”

       Jackie’s eyes slit and I see his lips curving over his stained teeth.  Eyes wide, I jerk upright when he steps uncomfortably close to my brother.  _He could rip him in half, he could rip him in half –_

       _SMACK!_

       Jackie backhands Cliff so suddenly I blink and Cliff is on the floor, my jaw having time to drop before the mutant spits, “Humans – you always were a self-important species.” A wicked grin splits his face. “But not anymore.  Here, we control you, and we will make you submit.”

       “You’re an idiot!” Cliff snarls, jolting to his feet as I make a grab for him. “The only reason you haven’t killed us is because you need us!” His lips gnarl into an ugly sneer. “You _do not_ have power over us, jackass, so you mine as well lock us up and shove the key up your ass because I am not fucking my sister to restore the human race just so you can enslave us!”

 

 

 

 

 

       _Sqrk sqrk sqrk_ , the doors swing back and forth, punctuating the dead air and making the hair on the back of my neck slowly rise.  Cliff is on his own, there’s nothing I can do to protect him from Jackie.  My stomach ties itself in knots when the wolfman just stares, flipping back and forth between confusion and fear when I notice his weapon is down.  There isn’t a trace of emotion on his face.  Cliff actually shut him the fuck up.  Seeing this as an opportunity for a certain idiot to make himself scarce, I kick the back of Cliff’s leg to make him look over and see my urgent expression.  He refuses, the unexpected motion making Jackie’s eyes snap to mine instead.  I swallow hard, digging my chipped nails into the concrete floor.  Like polished jewels, his eyes shine at me, murderous and cold and my favorite color – blue; tugging up yesterday’s happy memories of the African sky at daybreak.  His gaze jumps between us for a long moment.  Then, his head nods ever the slightest and he steps back and silently disappears through the doors.

       We got through to him?

       Seconds tick by and all I can do is blink.  _“Here, we control you, and we will make you submit.”_ No.  I give my throbbing head a vigorous shake.  That wouldn’t happen.  We promised to kill ourselves if Peter ever forced us upon each other.  Underlanders are _merciless_.  Their sick minds have probably already planned out how to make me birth the nations.  Peter gave us time to . . . think.  Not a night goes by I don’t lie awake dreading the day he realizes we don’t need to.

       I feel Cliff’s eyes on me and lift my head.  His face is still red. “We need to get to the infirmary before the Jack Attack comes to his senses,” I mutter.  His eyes flicker wearily at me but he drifts over and helps me up.  The infirmary is on the opposite side of the subterranean world (which seems counterproductive to me since most injuries around here occur in the training unit) so we’re both dragging our feet when the catawampus sign comes into view.

       I carefully lower myself onto one of the several cots in the large, sectioned-off room and groan, closing my eyes in a frown as the pain settles over me like a heavy blanket. “I thought you got off twenty minutes ago,” I mumble to Cece as she places a handful of pills in my awaiting hand. 

       “Got called in,” she replied.  Her voice is sweet compared to my throaty one; I think she’s some kind of bird.  I grunt again and shove them in my mouth, chewing hastily before swallowing.  In no time at all, I'll be floating with the clouds.  Five minutes pass and I’m completely numb, breathing softly in bliss.  I feel Cliff slide his hand into mine, shaking, rough, cold, and my lips perk into a faint smile and try to grip him back.  Ah.  He was an asshole but I still love him.

       Love him.

       I _love_ him.

       Heh-heh.

 “Waura?” Cliff asks.  Eugh, his hand is clammy. “I love you.”

       Well, isn’t that a happy coincidence.  Bubbly laughter spills from my lips and I twist my head around to him and open my burning eyes wide enough to make out a blurry figure.  Um, correction: _three_ blurry figures.  My smile slips and I squint my eyes.  Cliff . . . Cece, and . . .

       “How long will she be out, Celik?”

       “Long enough, yun Lere,” Cece answers.  _Yun Lere?_   Where had I heard that phrase?  Everywhere on the Corona when someone addressed the Lere, but I called him . . . Peter.

       “We need only . . . persuade the male to inseminate her,” Cece finishes.

       “Have her ready.”

       The coruscating body turns and strides in the direction it came, encapsulating my brother as Jackie and another drag him away from me.  Screaming.  It was as if my brain was a tunnel and his cries were echoing, echoing, echoing, getting a little closer to silence each time.  Time’s up.

       I let my sweaty head fall back and stare at the ceiling with glazed eyes, the full weight of the drugs now resting on top of my body.  I’ll pass out soon – just like they want and I can’t stop it.  I should have stopped Cliff.  I should have punched him in the mouth when I saw what was in his eyes.

       We shouldn’t have survived.


End file.
